How do you stay positive about your child's future?

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I was just recently diagnosed with Aspergers (at age 50).

I had a terrible, unhappy childhood. As a young adult, I vowed to never get married or have kids. I certainly did not want my kids to experience the same pain I did growing up.

Well, that all changed after I met my wife. As having a family was very important to her.

Looking back, the pain I experienced as both a child and an adult can be attributed to me trying to live the life of a neurotypical. My parents tried to raise me as a neurotypical child. I, myself, tried to live a neurotypical life as an adult. It was painful, as I was not successful.

I was fortunate that my wife has been very understanding. She, by and large, understands who I am (my essence) and allows me to be who I am.

Anyhow, my belief is, that if the expectations were set differently. Of who I was. Of what I could be. Life would have been easier and much more straightforward.

We need to accept and rejoice in who we are and do our best to become the best we can be. Whatever that is.

I currently have 2 kids. Both teens. I suspect one may be an Aspie. I do my best to guide both of them based upon who they are.

My husband and I had awful childhoods (bullying for me, bullying and abuse for him), after some chaotic teen years we both turned out reasonably well-adjusted. We both had jobs, our own apartments, some friends, etc. Then we met each other and have been happily married (mostly, a few flare ups, but nothing lasting or unresolved) for almost seven years now.

My father is retired, but I'm certain he's on the spectrum. He taught himself nuclear physics, and managed to work his way into a high paying position despite his inability to have a polite conversation. He won several awards, and held a number of patents for his inventions/discoveries. My mother has unusual behavior, she doesn't socialize with adults, just animals and kids. They've been married nearly forty years, have a nice house, and seem content to garden and care for their billion (fixed) rescued stray cats. They're happy.

A lot of the scientists, especially physicists, I've met over the years were almost certainly somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. I think the key is to just find your niche. If you want friends, you can have friends, you just have to find the right people.

We are having rough times, now, but I have to stay positive because how else can I keep doing what I have to do? I don't have the luxury to wallow in it, though sometimes I really want to when it gets bad.

So, I think about the good things, because they do exist, and because at least I have choices. Will it get better? Will it get worse? I don't know. It was better, so I have to believe that we can get back there. If not, I still have the capacity to protect my son from himself, though I do not know for how long.

In a different place, if I only had a Hobson's choice, I would feel differently, but I would still have to think positively despite my intrinsic nature not to. Because I have to make things work, and when I feel hopeless I cannot function.

Oh ASDmommy, I agree with you a hundred percent!